Flying harvest

[Robert_Brenchley]

I got down to the plot for an hour tonight; it was all I could manage as I'm bogged down with marking. To my surprise I found a swarm of bees crammed into a narrow gap under one of my hives.I've had them move into empty hives before; this is the first time I've seen one take an interest in an occupied hive. I had to annoy the bees in that hive and pull it apart to get at the swarm, but I boxed them up and combined them with a split I made the other day. The extra bees will be really useful, and they've come at a good moment, just as the honey's started coming in again after the chilly spell we had.

[Robert_Brenchley]

[Merry Tiller]

Heard a strange high pitched buzzing in my back garden this evening, it sounded a bit like a mosquito. When I finally located the noise it was two bees one on top of the other, they looked like they were mating. I don't know what kind of bees they were but they looked like bumble bees to me, is this normal behavior?

[Robert_Brenchley]

When bees die inside the nest they're taken out, often some distance, and dropped. I often see the carrier get caught up with the legs of the corpse, and then you get that agitated while as it struggles to get free.

[Merry Tiller]

Yes, could have been, it was certainly the one on top making all the noise :-[